Pastor Tommy Heffner Sr.
I was born the first time on June 10, 1943 and raised in a Southern Baptist Church. I was born again at the age of 10 years old. During a revival I was brought under conviction by the Holy Spirit and the preacher preaching on Hell and I knew that if I died I would certainly go to Hell. Being very shy, I kept putting off going down to be saved at the invitation. After several weeks of deep conviction, I stepped out at the invitation and that burden of sin was lifted. I was saved before I ever got to the front of the church.
Eph 2:8-9 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. I was saved because I completely trusted what the Lord Jesus Christ did for me on the cross.
Because I wasn’t exhorted to read and study the bible, before long as a teenager I quit going to church and was backslid until I was about 30 years old. During that time, the Lord whipped me through motorcycle falls 5 times and other things that happened to me and my family,
Hebrews 12:6-7 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
I saw that I had to get back in church or the Lord was going to kill me, so I made myself go to church for three weeks straight. It was a struggle every Sunday Morning, but on the third Sunday, during the invitation, I went forward all torn up and rededicated my life to the Lord. After that I started listening to Oliver B. Green and some other independent Baptist preachers on the radio and they got me interested in reading and studying the bible.
However, soon I was fooled into believing that you had to know Greek or Hebrew in order to understand the bible. I bought Oliver Green’s books, then got a Sword of the Lord and bought John R. Rice’s books and thought I was going to learn something, I didn’t. It was about that time that I changed jobs and ran into a man that believed the King James Bible was the perfect word of God. We argued for three months. Every time I would meet up with him, we would go at it until one day he gave:
Psalms 12:6-7 The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.
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